Putting aside nostalgia, and putting aside a genuine longing for more games in this vein - yes, Baldur's Gate really is that good. The enhanced edition is simply a overpriced rerelase of a vintage game that provided no significant new content to justify such cost, and while it is solid its nothing someone who already owns the game OR can get it cheaper bundled with its sequel should botherPutting aside nostalgia, and putting aside a genuine longing for more games in this vein - yes, Baldur's Gate really is that good. The enhanced edition is simply a overpriced rerelase of a vintage game that provided no significant new content to justify such cost, and while it is solid its nothing someone who already owns the game OR can get it cheaper bundled with its sequel should bother with.

Baldur's Gate itself, is a solid 10/10 for its time and genre. A classic RPG worth visiting if you were too young when it was originally released out to enjoy it. The story is great and the game play and atmosphere is very strong, drawing you in. This however, is pretty much the exact same game, repackaged and a re-sold. I struggled to find the new things (it had been about 10 years sinceBaldur's Gate itself, is a solid 10/10 for its time and genre. A classic RPG worth visiting if you were too young when it was originally released out to enjoy it. The story is great and the game play and atmosphere is very strong, drawing you in. This however, is pretty much the exact same game, repackaged and a re-sold. I struggled to find the new things (it had been about 10 years since i played it).

I feel like they should have just went ahead and used a different engine for the game (like the neverwinter nights 2 one, or something similar and more stable). And actually, you know, "update" it.…Expand

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition is for the most part the way it once was back when it was released about 15 years ago, but it comes with three extra companions, a multi-level gladiator arena called the Black Pits, and supposedly 400 fixes. I give this game an earnest 7/10 because for the most part, it is still a solid game as it once was, and the writing for both the companions and theBaldur's Gate Enhanced Edition is for the most part the way it once was back when it was released about 15 years ago, but it comes with three extra companions, a multi-level gladiator arena called the Black Pits, and supposedly 400 fixes. I give this game an earnest 7/10 because for the most part, it is still a solid game as it once was, and the writing for both the companions and the Black Pits seem decent. Where this game lost marks on, however, is the seemingly lack of content. 15 years later, this game really hasn't changed much, and much of the improvements can be found through modding the original game at absolutely no charge. There seems more readily apparent bugs than what was fixed, and the new content simply do not seem all that extensive. The companion dialogues and adventures are all rather short, and the Black Pits consists but only two areas. Furthermore, the original cinematic cutscenes were cut out in favor of 2d artistic renditions, which, while looks decent, seems diminutive compared to the original movies. All-in-all, it is still a decent game. After six patches, the original version of Baldur's Gate with a mod or two still seems the better version compared to this "Enhanced Edition." However, there is currently people who are active in modding this Enhanced Edition, and if the momentum in this department continues forth, this version may potentially exceed the original yet. There is also supposed to be a matchmaking service for multiplayer looming on the horizon, so again, it might be something to look forward to.…Expand

Worth it for nostalgia reasons. However there's not a huge amount "enhanced" about this. And if they're going to ask for a fair bit more than what you can get from the basic gog download then it should certainly have had more work done to it as it still feels as old as the original. However, I can't give this a bad review.... I mean, come on.... it's Baldurs Gate... It's just a shame theWorth it for nostalgia reasons. However there's not a huge amount "enhanced" about this. And if they're going to ask for a fair bit more than what you can get from the basic gog download then it should certainly have had more work done to it as it still feels as old as the original. However, I can't give this a bad review.... I mean, come on.... it's Baldurs Gate... It's just a shame the enhancements were so slight.…Expand

Aside from the bugs, it is an alright game (note I never played it before, so no nostalgia) and I am not using any of the classes from Baldur's Gate 2 anyway. This game just simply is not fantastic. The voice acting is ok, but its annoying how often the characters talk when you control them, especially the extremely annoying Xzar you find early on. The music is good, the combat is ok (soAside from the bugs, it is an alright game (note I never played it before, so no nostalgia) and I am not using any of the classes from Baldur's Gate 2 anyway. This game just simply is not fantastic. The voice acting is ok, but its annoying how often the characters talk when you control them, especially the extremely annoying Xzar you find early on. The music is good, the combat is ok (so many misses early game) characters are cool, but rarely bother to talk aside from those annoying movement lines. Story is mediocre. Oh and the intel graphics problems are so easily fixed, you actually don't deserve the game if you think they are a problem. Fixed it in 10 minutes. Game runs fine afterwards.…Expand

I was biased. I WANTED to love this game. Baldur's Gate II is in my top five games of all time, no question. Baldur's Gate wasn't as polished, but it was a great buildup for the superior sequel. When I saw EE out, I dropped the money without hesitation. Before I knew it, I was drawn right back in and pounding through the game once more with a Sorcerer.

God damn was it frustrating!
OnI was biased. I WANTED to love this game. Baldur's Gate II is in my top five games of all time, no question. Baldur's Gate wasn't as polished, but it was a great buildup for the superior sequel. When I saw EE out, I dropped the money without hesitation. Before I knew it, I was drawn right back in and pounding through the game once more with a Sorcerer.

God damn was it frustrating!

On the good side: the new characters are fantastic, though their balance is questionable. All three have such good voice acting and character development that they honestly feel as if they were there from the beginning. As to the balance I mentioned, Dorn is a killing machine that puts Minsc to shame. Neera is a wild mage... which... well you know about wild mages. Rasaad is a meat popsickle. I liked his character, so I played with him the entire game. He was terrible, simply because low level monks are worthless in this edition of the D&D ruleset. Ironically they scale incredibly well, so by the end of BG2 Rasaad is going to be a rampaging god of death. But he is simply dead weight in BG1.

On the bad side: they say they added over 400 improvements? Well they broke just as many things. The game is riddled with bugs, and considering how many hours I've put into the original BG1 and BG2, I feel rather sure that a lot of these bugs weren't around before. Nothing is game breaking (except for one big one I'll mention in a second), but its a lot of very pervasive minor stuff. Characters will audibly confirm a movement order, then not move until you click a second time. Characters won't autoattack when they should. It was enough that halfway through, I was feeling pretty disillusioned. I could have bought the gog non-enhanced version for half the price, and except for the new characters been perfectly happy. The nail in the coffin for me did not come until the very end however.

I beat Sarevok in the final showdown, the game pauses and gives the message 'congratulations on beating Sarevok! Your game will now be saved for export to BG2!'. And then it crashed to desktop. A quick google search showed that this is a bug that was well known before the beta, quite a few people have experienced it, and they released the game with it still there. I didn't get to see the ending cinematic. I don't really care. I just feel ripped off that on top of all the small bugs, this huge bug made it through to production. It ended the experience on a giant, wet and floppy sour note.

The game is made by old bioware devs and the result is a game true to its old edition with very nice additions that hopefully will be increased in the future. Given that the game sells enough to keep investing on it.
Any BG fan bashing EE is being stupid. This and BG2EE is your last chance of getting good BG games.

A great game with some new bonus content, and most importantly it will run on newer operating systems in the proper resolution. Unfortunately the amount of new content is a bit limited for the price tag. Some new characters with side quests and some interface improvements may not justify 20 dollars if you already own the original and have modded it to a state that is pretty similar to whatA great game with some new bonus content, and most importantly it will run on newer operating systems in the proper resolution. Unfortunately the amount of new content is a bit limited for the price tag. Some new characters with side quests and some interface improvements may not justify 20 dollars if you already own the original and have modded it to a state that is pretty similar to what BG:Enhanced gives you.…Expand

Well, I'm not going to review Baldur's Gate here. The game is a timeless classic, one of my all-time favourites and about as good as roleplaying for the PC ever was. Nothing about that has changed. So I AM going to review the "enhancements", the things that they charged me 20 additional bucks for.
The technical part of the enhancement is a bit of a letdown actually. Almost everything goodWell, I'm not going to review Baldur's Gate here. The game is a timeless classic, one of my all-time favourites and about as good as roleplaying for the PC ever was. Nothing about that has changed. So I AM going to review the "enhancements", the things that they charged me 20 additional bucks for.
The technical part of the enhancement is a bit of a letdown actually. Almost everything good is simply a continuation of fan made mods that have been there, done that, years before. Everyone who (like me) has played BG 1 in the BG 2 engine by BGtutu, downloaded the Weidu mods or numerous fan fixes will not really notice anything groundbreakingly new. The zoom-in option is nice, at least one step above the already availbale high-res mods. Nothing really special here.
None of my personal pet peeves and actual technical shortcomings have been addressed, though. The pathfinding AI is still abysmally bad (Firewine dungeon is still the same old unnerving headless chicken dance, when all that would be required is to change the scripts to allow player characters to pass through each other). The pRNG (pseudo random number generator) is still broken - things with a probability of 1/20 keep happening 3 times in a row (probability of 1 in 8000) way too often to be random whenever the pRNG gets stuck on a bad seed. All in all, underwhelming on the technical aspects.
What about the additional content?
Well, I would rate that way higher, if the two new NPCs I'm currently running with were not built either on full purpose to annoy the player or with such an amount of ineptitude it hurts.
Neera the wild mage is a character, completely unable to do her only job. At level 1, with 4 hitpoints, she better NOT cast any spells (her only use), as there's a 1 in 20 chance for a mishap that might (and very often WILL) kill her outright. Countless reload saved games later you recruit Rasaad the monk, who, as a front line melee fighter (the only thing a monk is really there for...) also has way too bad stats and few hit points for his intended role. Combined with the inability to protect himself from critical hits (aka wear a helmet) he just keeps dying time and again so FAST, not even auto-pause and a ton of potions will help. Really, the constant accidents and reloads are so frustrating and annoying, I almost overlooked their admittedly excellent voice work and decent background stories...
All in all, it's ok, but for an ease-of-use package that basically saves me 3 hours of downloading mods , installation and tweaking when wanting to Play BG on my new computer, the price is a bit steep.…Expand

I had great hopes, becausei absolutely loved and adored baldur's gate 2.. and having never played BG1, i was very excited..turns out, it did not hold up for me.. you would have a better experience with the game when using the Gog edition.. with all the community content..

I think this version of Baldurs gate is actually pretty lame. I also think it is expensive for what you actually get, especially considering that most of the work had been done beforehand by avid fans for free. I think the dev's recognised this, so tacked on the black pits adventure, which sits entirely separate from the main quest, and throw in a few extra characters. The adventure isI think this version of Baldurs gate is actually pretty lame. I also think it is expensive for what you actually get, especially considering that most of the work had been done beforehand by avid fans for free. I think the dev's recognised this, so tacked on the black pits adventure, which sits entirely separate from the main quest, and throw in a few extra characters. The adventure is good, but not really necessary, and the extra characters are also good, aside from Neera's awful voice acting. They would have done better to license a suitable, modern engine and re do the game in that IMO. A bit like how half life was re done in source. One crucial difference there though, black mesa was free, this isnt.…Expand

Baldurs Gate is a phenomenal series of games, but this Enhanced Edition may not be worth the price tag. Everything they did, other than the additional content (which is buggy as hell), is doable by modding the original game.
If you already own Baldur's Gate, I would advise against picking this up. If you havn't played Baldur's Gate and want to, I suppose this is a decent place to start,Baldurs Gate is a phenomenal series of games, but this Enhanced Edition may not be worth the price tag. Everything they did, other than the additional content (which is buggy as hell), is doable by modding the original game.
If you already own Baldur's Gate, I would advise against picking this up. If you havn't played Baldur's Gate and want to, I suppose this is a decent place to start, but for a little extra effort and a much lower price you can purchase an original copy and mod these features in yourself.…Expand

To a fan of the other original....skip it.....to a new comer....it MIGHT be what you're looking for. I'd personally recommend getting the originals off of GoG and then adding mods to bring it up to your tastes, since the fan mods aren't bound by the same restrictions Beamdog was and have put forth a much more enjoyable game.

Well it was a project doomed to failure before it even began.To a fan of the other original....skip it.....to a new comer....it MIGHT be what you're looking for. I'd personally recommend getting the originals off of GoG and then adding mods to bring it up to your tastes, since the fan mods aren't bound by the same restrictions Beamdog was and have put forth a much more enjoyable game.

Well it was a project doomed to failure before it even began. They're under contract to not change ANY of the original story plots or character quests, which means anyone hoping to see BG and BG2 in the way they were MEANT to be played, without the time constraints that forced so many quests and characters to be dropped...you're out of luck. Even among the modding community only a handful of the unfinished quests and plots have been implemented. And those terms are very likely to carry forth to BG2:EE as well. Meaning several character's questlines and plot points will remain tragically cut short, and ToB will still be a gutted, contradictory mess of what was supposed to have been an epic third full game (not an expansion) finale to the series.

And rather then correcting oversights in the BG2 engine that EE uses, they've broken it even further. Not to mention the new kits that are utterly broken (either they don't work at all, or are stupidly overpowered). But I don't 100% blame the developers for that. BG2's hasty release resulted in several official kits being grossly more powerful then intended and Beamdog simply based their new kits on those already in the game, since they're contract bound to not re-balance the kits. The new NPCs are somewhat of a mixed bag. Dorn is an overpowered monster that doesn't need a party at all, while Neera and Rashad are closer to proper NPCs (Rashad being grossly underestimated due to the fact that a low level monk plays MUCH differently then a high level one, rather then playing the same way throughout as in 3rd edition). The 4th hidden character, despite having ridiculous stats (they don't really do anything worth while to warrant griping about, unlike Dorn), isn't a gamebreaker any more then any other npc part-caster can be, and has a reasonably well written personality. With exception to Dorn, who needs some heavy tweaking, the NPCs weren't too bad.…Expand

First i was like yeah Baldurs Gate, good old times. After that: Bugs, Bugs and bugs. But they have been fixed mostly by now. The new cut scenes are worse than the old ones. But big plus: 80 Arrows in 1 item Slot! Also classes from BG II built in. The remake of the game is troublesome at the beginning, but the game itself is that great, so i don't care ^^

Though I appreciate the effort of the team behind Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, it sadly is diminished by the hard work of the original game's modding community, who have been able to do great things already with a still great game.

To those who want to play Baldur's Gate for the first time, I'll leave a link to the ideal version which is available for purchase and download. The siteThough I appreciate the effort of the team behind Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, it sadly is diminished by the hard work of the original game's modding community, who have been able to do great things already with a still great game.

To those who want to play Baldur's Gate for the first time, I'll leave a link to the ideal version which is available for purchase and download. The site provides and thoroughly useful and effective mod guide that will update the game in more ways than you could imagine, all the while retaining a cheap ten dollar price and managing to make far better addition than this Enhanced Edition.

Having owned the original version of this game with several discs, it must be said that the main reason for obtaining this game is convenience. The enhanced edition adds a few extra characters and quests here and there, but it is largely the same as the original. There have been a number of issues with bugs in the steam edition, but these are fixable and hopefully updates are on the wayHaving owned the original version of this game with several discs, it must be said that the main reason for obtaining this game is convenience. The enhanced edition adds a few extra characters and quests here and there, but it is largely the same as the original. There have been a number of issues with bugs in the steam edition, but these are fixable and hopefully updates are on the way now that contractual issues have been resolved. Worth a positive score simply because the original game was that good, but this port has not enhanced the game in any particular way. Definitely worth playing if you enjoy RPG's, it's the most in depth game of it's time.…Expand

New interface and higher resolution font (patched in Nov. 2013)
+ Many bug fixes and BG2-ruleset incorporation
- Same low resolution sprites and backgrounds
- High price for existing free community content
- New cutscenes are inferior and nebulous
Baldur's Gate 1 is a great game, but this product isn't disappointing by itself; it's disappointing because it is establishing a low New interface and higher resolution font (patched in Nov. 2013)
+ Many bug fixes and BG2-ruleset incorporation

- Same low resolution sprites and backgrounds
- High price for existing free community content
- New cutscenes are inferior and nebulous

Baldur's Gate 1 is a great game, but this product isn't disappointing by itself; it's disappointing because it is establishing a low bar which will undoubtedly be reproduced in the "EE" versions of BG2 and potentially Planescape: Torment. The only people I could recommend play this are those with strong nostalgia for the original. It's unfortunate that the original studios no longer exist to retain control of their license.…Expand

Utter nostalgia heaven! Rebuilt using the Baldur's Gate 2 improved engine, including modern resolution support. It's a real treat to return to the game that built a franchise and set the bar for story quality for so many years. Returning veterans will enjoy the game with improved colors and 3 new characters, and newcomers will be pulled into a setting that will absorb days of their livesUtter nostalgia heaven! Rebuilt using the Baldur's Gate 2 improved engine, including modern resolution support. It's a real treat to return to the game that built a franchise and set the bar for story quality for so many years. Returning veterans will enjoy the game with improved colors and 3 new characters, and newcomers will be pulled into a setting that will absorb days of their lives with its richness. If you've never played Baldur's Gate before, don't miss out. If you played it before, don't miss the chance to treat yourself again. A true masterpiece of storytelling.…Collapse

Age may have formed a few cracks in its legendary skin, and perhaps the over reliance on randomness from the Dungeons and Dragons’ ruleset seems rather archaic, but within this slumbering ancient beast lies a mighty heart waiting to be awakened once more.